An overview of the first Competen-SEA training workshop hosted in Malaysia

USM, MALAYSIA, 9 Nov 2017 — A three-day workshop on designing massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been successfully held at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Pulau Pinang, Malaysia from 6 to 8 of November. The first capacity building workshop was attended by 83 participants from 10 universities as well as representatives from UNESCO and Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). The main objectives of the 3-day workshop is to facilitate educators and technical staff to design, develop and deliver high quality MOOCs using edX platform.

The workshop was officiated by the deputy vice chancellor (Academic and International) of USM, Professor Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah. In his opening speech, he lauded the involvement and collaboration among various departments in the workshop and project:

“A multidisciplinary team is important for addressing the various issues involved in delivering high-quality educational content relevant to the targeted community.”

Four departments within USM were involved in organising the workshop – Centre for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA), National Advanced IPv6 Centre (NAv6), Center for Development of Academic Excellence & Student Development (CDAE), and Centre for Instructional Technology & Mutimedia (PTPM).

He also noted that the objective of the project is in line with the country’s blueprint on education:

“The objective of MOOC development to address the lifelong learning needs of the wider community is in line with the Malaysian Higher Education Blueprint 2015-2025.”

The participants were first presented with the introduction of the project, the status of MOOCs and the outcome of the first part of the project, the feasibility study.

The training was conducted by a panel of experts from the project’s European-partner institutions from University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain (UC3M); Open Universiteit in the Netherlands (OUNL); and Universität des Saarlandes, Germany (USAAR). The topics presented ranged from instructional design, motivational design, microdesign in edX and learning analytics and evaluation. There was also a hands-on session on how to use Open edX platform and an open discussion related to the role of the university in managing MOOC project. Finally, the session on business modelling and business planning for MOOCs development was handled by Dr Andrey Girenko of GIRAF PM e.K.

The Competen-SEA project is a Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) project funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission. The main objective of the Competen-SEA project is to enable best South-East Asian Universities to develop a new kind of accessible, affordable, high quality and effective educational service to various groups of the population which are now excluded from traditional educational outreach.